COLUMN: Lilley – CBC is exposed in new book

Most discussions about the future of Canada’s state broadcaster turn quickly to emotional arguments about the role CBC has supposedly played in building this country.

According to supporters, without CBC there would be no Canada, or at least a diminished Canada.

I don’t buy that.

For the last two years I have been documenting the waste at CBC and their refusal to comply with the letter and spirit of the law that allows any Canadian to see exactly how our tax dollars are spent.

For most of that time, I simply called for CBC to live up to the transparency they and their reporters demand of government. Now I think the answer for curing what ails CBC is more drastic: They need to be sold off.

For the last several months I have been working on a book that documents stories about CBC that most Canadians should know but don’t.

Available now, CBC Exposed (Freedom Press), details the millions upon millions wasted on lawsuits that could have been settled with apologies from CBC executives.

Did you know that CBC was forced to pay the largest award ever in a lawsuit against a media company?

CBC had maligned the reputation of an Ottawa doctor so badly that the judge in the case called the state broadcaster “parasitic sensationalists” and awarded almost $1 million in damages.

With legal fees and court costs, the final bill that taxpayers had to pick up was estimated at closer to $5 million.

Considering that the lawsuit could have been settled with an apology and a few thousand dollars in legal fees, CBC’s behaviour, their cavalier attitude to the use of taxpayers’ money, remains inexcusable. Of course, this isn’t the only case where CBC wasted taxpayer dollars. They do it every day.

I detail all these cases in the book and try to make the case that CBC needs to be sold off.

To CBC’s biggest fans, selling off the corporation is akin to shutting it down, but that is simply not the case.

Just because you may like watching a soft left, anti-business, Toronto-centric, politically correct television network doesn’t mean that I should have to pay for it.

Now, in case you think I’m being harsh in calling CBC a soft left, anti-business, Toronto-centric, politically correct network, understand that those are not my words but the words of the former head of CBC’s English programming: Richard Stursberg. CBC has proven time and again that they not only fit that description, but are also biased against conservative-minded Canadians, against Christians, against gun owners and against the state of Israel. If that’s what they want to be, fine, but that is not what a broadcaster owned by the government and funded by all the people of Canada should be.

In my view, CBC and all of its specialty channels and radio networks should be broken up into smaller groups and sold off. If the people of Canada want to support it, they will and CBC will flourish.

In CBC Exposed I detail each of these claims against CBC in the hope of starting that national conversation.

Why do we have a state broadcaster?

Is it still needed?

It’s time to have that national conversation but let’s leave the emotion out and have a discussion based on facts.

— Lilley is the host of Byline on Sun News Network. CBC Exposed can be purchased at www.freedompress.ca

It is sincerely my belief as a tax paying Canadian that the C.B.C as well as the Canadian Senate should be abolished as neither are truly functional or worth the money.
When will we as Canadians smarten up and demand that the Government of the day rule the coutry and not tyhe Supreme Court?

Just because you may like watching a soft left, anti-business, Toronto-centric, politically correct television network doesn’t mean that I should have to pay for it.

I agree but then why sould I have to pay for 5 specialty channels went all I want is one in the budle its inside. That’s the real rip off for the consumers. TV should be an al a carte menu selection of channels. A basic fee plus the channels you choose. Cable (Rogers, Bell, Shaw) are the one of the biggest crooks in the country.

As for selling off the CBC who will by it given that the CRTC sided with the consumer on the Bell Astral deal?

Brian, since you pay for CBC just like the rest of us, why don’t you in behalf of us go to CBC ‘PAID FOR BY US ‘ and have a ‘FREE’ lunch. While there, check the bathrooms, the larder, everything. Take photos of OUR HEAVILY PAID FOR CBC.
We pay for everything from the toilet paper to the smallest item in that bld and not only that, we pay for their parties. OH! and BTW, come to think of it, the next time that ass STROMBO puts on a lavish party paid for by the taxpayers, get yourself all doll-up and go to the party. You are paying for the show right Brian. Therefore, you are invited. We are all invited.

I don’t know where to begin here. You present a corucopia of mistruths, non-facts and half-baked assumptions that fail to illuminate anything in regards to how the CBC is managed. I’m an old school Conservative and I simply can’t relate to your perspective. There’s always a Conservative case to be made on the issues tackled by Sun Media but they are rarely, if ever, address with anything resembling intellectual vigor. Your coverage is designed to get a rise out of an audience, that’s it. Sound, cogent arguements that enlighten and engage are nowhere to be found. When I’m asked what troubles me the most about what’s going on in the world today, it has nothing to do with left wing ideas becoming policy. Bad ideas bare themselves out on there own. What truly troubles me is the base and shallow rhetoric emploed by those who apparently represent my political opinion. What troubles me is when the tone of our political discourse is set by a TABLOID media service. When a lifelong Conservative can’t relate to a supposedly Conservative news source it says quite a bit about how grave and polarized the world is becoming. You and your media outlet will continue to play no small part in perpetuating this sad state of affairs with or without a government funded CBC.

Brian, I agree with you. I just watched CBC and CNN on the weekend. One of their programs was how to STOP right wing media that is taking U.S.A by storm. They protrayed Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and Rush L in a negative way and accused Fox Network of all sorts. I do not find CBC and CNN credible as they have revealed a bias about themselves: that is why do they think their opinion is valid and everyone else’s opinion is invalid. If Fox News and GLenn Beck are doing extremely well, then why are they wrong? Isn’t it our right as consumers to view what we want to pay for? I guess not according so some media. I think they will put a stop to it. Sure SUN NEWS has their opinion about the LEft wing bias, but they don’t want to take our rights away to watch it if we choose to.

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Brian Lilley is the host of Byline on Sun News Network and a senior correspondent for Sun Media's Parliamentary Bureau in Ottawa. His weekly column is published in more than 30 daily newspapers across Canada and he appears on several leading talk radio stations.